New Party Still About Ross Perot

Since last year, when Ross Perot began putting his energy and his money into getting the Reform Party on the state ballots, he has said, "This is not about me." Well, yes it is.

Mr. Perot made clear in a television appearance last week that he will run for president if he is asked by members of the Reform

Party. Nothing was surprising in his comments, except that they followed by one day the announcement by former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm that he would seek the party's nomination. There must be some misgivings about hearing Mr. Perot come on so strong. Many think Mr. Lamm would make a very good candidate: willing to innovate but close enough to the mainstream to push hard against the position papers of President Clinton and Bob Dole. Even if he can't win, he would enrich the debate.

That is a fair observation. Mr. Perot won 19 percent of the vote when he ran in 1992, but that support was not created in the televised debates in which he appeared with Mr. Clinton and George Bush. Quirky and too simplistic, Mr. Perot's personal image can be his own biggest problem.

Mr. Lamm might fare better, though he has had his share of the unorthodox in his past. It was he who suggested that it would be good for the nation if old people just die when they become sick, rather that using up expensive medical care. And, in discussing the mid-1980s famine in Ethiopia, he said that overpopulation was like a cancer, and nobody tries to cure cancer by feeding it. He even once said that money spent on special education "to educate a child to roll over" might be better spent on the brightest children.

In the broader political game, perhaps third-party candidates need to be audacious. Whichever of these two the Reform Party chooses at its Aug. 18 convention, -- and the suspense is killing no one -- there will be some effect on the big-party candidates.

The common wisdom is that any Reform Party candidate will hurt Mr. Dole. But making Mr. Lamm the nominee would add a twist: strongly pro-choice, he might take some otherwise-disappointed abortion-rights supporters away from the President.

Another piece of common wisdom is that the disillusionment that helped Mr. Perot to such a respectable showing in 1992 has subsided as the economy has improved. If the Reform Party project in 1996 were really about someone or something besides Mr. Perot, it would have been interesting to see how a different candidate might have fared.